Charsadda stuns Chitral to win Dr. Shoukat Challenge Football Cup

PESHAWAR, Sept 12 (APP): Spirited Charsadda stunned star-studded Chitral on a penalty shoot-out final of the Dr. Shoukat Challenge Football Cup played here at Tehmas Khan Football Complex on Monday.
Veteran Footballer Salim Khan, Professor Fahad Hussain of National Institute of Basic Sciences and Physio of Afghanistan Cricket Team Azeem Malik were guests at the thrilling final witnessed by vociferous crowd.
Organizing Secretary Dr. Shoukat Mohmand, office-bearers of the District Football Association, hundreds and thousands of football spectators were also present.
There were more Chitralise supporters based in various localities of Peshawar District for star-studded District Chitral team one side of the ground while on the other side there were thundering applauses for Charsadda team.
District Charsadda is situated some 20km in the north of Peshawar and that is why there were more supporters who came in three buses that turned the whole complexion of the match into a heated gathering.
The supporters of both Charsadda and Chitral were enthusiastically engaged into the thrilling match and Chitral was first opened the account in the very 7th minute of the match through Fahim Khan on the field attempt.
The early goal lead injected new vigor in the rank of Chitral team and their forwards made a half-dozen goal-fetching moves but either their attempts were went wide from the goal-post or Charsadda goal-keeper Imran rescued his team with spectacular display of goal-keeping. Imran saved more three easy goal scoring chances and received thundering applauses from the sitting spectators.
After the lead of Fahim for Chitral team, Charsadda team also tried their hard to level the tally but they were failed due to tight marking. Charsadda forwards failed to move with free hands and thus till the end of the first session Chitral was leading by 1-0.
It was the second session in which Charsadda got position of the ball by making some good rallies of attacks as a result it was in the 53rd minute when Aurangzeb, the right winger, slammed in an equalizer through field attempt. When the goal tally was locked 1-1 till end of the stipulated time, both were awarded five each penalty kicks on which Charsadda scored on all five attempts while Chitral scored only three and two of the attempts were intercepted by Charsadda goal-keeper.
Thus Charsadda won the match by 6-4 on penalty shoot-out. The final match was nicely supervised by Khalid Khan while Jan Muhammad and Kaka Khan acted as deputy referees.
At the end of the final, Saleem Khan along with other guests awarded the winner’s trophy to Charsadda and Rs. 10,000 cash while Chitral got the wunners-up trophy and Rs. 5000 as cash prizes. Referee Khalid Khan got Rs. 20,000 cash for his outstanding referee while the two linemen awarded Rs. 15000.
Speaking on this occasion, Saleem Khan lauded Dr. Shoukat for organizing the tournament on own resources wherein top teams from all across the province took part. He said such events should be organized on regular basis so that the youth could come up and show their talent.
He paid rich tribute to the police and personnel of security forces who rendered sacrifices for the restoration of peace in the area.